


WORDS FOR A SAINT ON FIRE

by cymatile



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Ambition: Light Fingers! (Fallen London), Don't expect a masterpiece, Non-Linear Narrative, alternative universe, first things first: this is an extremely self-indugent thing, hell don't even expect a proper fic, that will be updated whenever i feel like it, this is more of a... writing fragments dump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27647321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cymatile/pseuds/cymatile
Summary: Someone once told to his shadowed face that he would burn, and so he does.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> After finishing Ambition: Light Fingers!, I asked myself: what if the Hybrid truly comes for Mr Fires after the Sixth City falls?
> 
> These are just some really sloppy personal takes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You might want to read this thing down here to understand what the fuck is going on here on this day:
> 
> https://vake-hunter.tumblr.com/post/619846158677950464/a-very-fucked-up-fires-headcanon-that-i-have-to

[ _Your last sane thoughts before the pain takes over are of London, and how beautiful she must look among the stars._

 _Then, you **scream**._]


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr Wines POV

The flames born of Stone’s flesh should have done quick work. A fire that burns even the soul, what could last long against that?

But it’s not enough. Somehow, it’s not enough. You can hear him screaming still, you can smell him burning still, and it has been _hours_ (Is it the diamond’s revenge, you wonder, for having been torn away from the Mountain? You had told Fires multiple times to get rid of that thing - it was a terrible offense, to hoard a stolen piece of your employer’s hidden daughter, regardless of how tantalising it was for one’s own obsessions. But when was the last time Fires had truly listened to you?).

Another tortured shriek rises from the pyre, shattering your reverie into pieces. You feel bile welling up at your throat but you force it back; you won’t show weakness now, not when _they_ are still looking at you as much as they’re looking at the betrayal.

(“Mr Fires is already yours to do as you please. You and your… subjects are free to go wherever you want, as long as it is not here. What else could you want from us?”

“I want you to watch,” said the Moon-King in its soft, strangely familiar voice. “A small, reasonable favour, no?”

You had to use every inch of control to not jump at that _aberration_ and slash its throat off. “But why? What could you even gain from this?”

The Moon-King then cocked its head, slightly, a pleasant smile upon its lips. Its eyes stared languidly at you, terribly clever, terribly cruel, terribly _human_.

“Because I want you to suffer, too.”)


	3. III.

_Something warm hits the surface of the water and sinks to the bottom, sobbing._

_There’s so little of you left. So little, even less, that you can call you or yours. So when it lands right next to you, you grab it for yourself, greedy as only things that barely Are can be. You clutch it against your long gone chest and hold it there. (This, you recall faintly, is how you used to "hoard” - precious things must be held close to the heart, yes?)_

_It doesn’t try to escape you (not that you would let it, anyway); instead, it just curls up its carbonized body against you and lets out an anguished wail. You can see embers inside it, burning hot even down here in this tomb. It will burn forever, you realize, just like you will drown forever._

_So you let it cry, while something that could be happiness, were it not so twisted, bubbles inside you. This thing you hold now in your not-arms, this less-than-a-wraith, was something like you once. Just like you, it will not be what it was, never again, and it will suffer down here in the darkness, forever. Isn’t it wonderful?_

_After all, you had wanted a friend for so long..._

_You embrace it tighter, and join your own grief to its._

(Deep down the streets of the Sixth City, an exquisite melody can be heard, echoing from inside a dilapidated well.)


	4. IV.

“The Charred Man, you see, was as much of a sinner as you and I are,” the Smiling Priest tells you. “Far worse, in fact. He was, after all, responsible for the betrayal, together with others whose names you shall know, eventually. Did he do it willingly, you might ask yourself, or was he coerced? And I tell you, it doesn’t matter; he let it happen. If one sees one’s own kin doing evil and chooses to avert their eyes, why, aren’t they just as evil? Wouldn’t they deserve as much punishment?” The Priest leans close to you, his voice a whisper. “And the Charred Man was punished, oh yes, he was. For this old sin and for countless new ones. His own kin gave him to the pyre, like they gave the Drowned One to the altar, so his sins wouldn’t burn them, too. Fire laced with Law, to scorch even the soul to cinders, to make him less than nothing. Then they threw him down the Lacre. We can only wonder why, though. Maybe they thought the Drowned Man would forget about them if they gave him a little piece of revenge to rage on?" The old man chuckles at that. "If so, they would be disappointed. The Drowned Man is wrathful, but he knows mercy, too. He saw the Charred Man's pain and sins and embraced him as a kindred soul."

"Just like Christ would," you say.

The Smiling Priest gives you a solemn nod. "Just like Christ would."


	5. V.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9: At your window 
> 
> That night as you sleep, Mr Sacks crouches on your window-sill. His robe is the colour of salt, and his hood is trimmed with red fox-fur. I have brought you gifts, he whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this one calls for a mild Gore TW.

##  **Accept a crumbling piece of ever-burning coal**

Mr Sacks seems eager in watching you accept this one in particular.

**Such a honour**

This, Mr Sacks guarantees, is a little piece of one of his most beloved belongings. He wouldn’t normally share it, but it is Christmas, is it not? Such a joyous season calls for acts of generosity like this.

Reverently, you guide the coal to your open mouth, ignoring how the skin that melts wax-like off your fingers stains both your carpet and your nightgown. The coal’s surface keeps crumbling and crumbling and you shove your ruined, dripping fingers in your mouth to make sure not a single piece is lost. You feel your eyes burning from the smoke that comes out from between your boiling lips.

When your mouth is but a scorched ruin, you finally swallow it. Oh, you can feel your throat swelling and stretching and burning as it slowly descends and is that how it is to be a snake devouring an ostrich’s egg? Probably, although you’re sure that it is the snake’s throat that crushes the egg, not the other way round - and you’re sure the snake also doesn’t end up swallowing the charred remains of its own tongue.

Under the cavernous gaze of Mr Sacks, the gift settles heavy down your stomach and you can feel your bile boiling you from the inside-

When you wake up the next morning nothing seems out of place. Your fingers, your lips, your tongue, all seem to be as good as they were before you went to sleep; your throat is not mangled and scorched and torn from the inside, and your guts are certainly not boiling you alive with its acids.

There is, however a large piece of coal on your bedstand, resting upon a silver tray like an idol on a family shrine. Just looking at it makes your mouth water.

[ _Something was here_

You’ve gained 1 x Sanctified Piece of the Charred Man’s Very Flesh

You now have 1 x Seeking Mr Eaten's Name

You’ve gained 5 x Unaccountably Peckish]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to emulate the game's writing style for this one.
> 
> It was... fun. Gross, but fun.


	6. VI.

It is Veils whom you worry most for.

The others are suffering too, of course, in their own ways. Your agents tell of how Mr Spices seems to be indulging in its beloved honey more than ever, and how Mr Stones seems to have acquired a sudden distaste for venom-rubies and fire opals. Just the other day, you found Apples retching outside its chambers (“ _Ashes_ , Wines, everything tastes like ashes!”). Even Iron, aloof, bitter Iron, approached you out of its own volition, telling you with a slightly shaken handwriting that it could play the replacement role this time.

You are all hurting. Less for what actually happened and more for what it means for all of you, true, but it is still pain, yes? It’s still pain.

But Veils…

With a heavy sigh, you push the chamber’s door open. This in itself is already a bad sign - Veils does like his privacy so, almost as much as Iron, and usually the door to his chambers would be well locked. 

The familiar tomb-like darkness greets you, along with a silence deep enough to make you uncomfortable. Veils’ rooms were _never_ quiet, always echoing with whispering fabrics and music - be it from an instrument or from the screams of his dearie “pets”. To have everything so silent is unsettling, even if it had been like that for a time, now. Ever since the… incident, that is.

Shaking your head, you make a beeline to the farthest corner of the room, the one near the only window.

Veils is there, placidly sitting on an elegant rocking chair in front of the window. He either doesn’t notice your presence or outright ignores it - the latter being more likely, although still _wrong_ because it is _Veils_ , after all; he should be threatening you a painful death for coming into his chambers unannounced, old friendship or not. And yet, there he sits, quiet and calm like a bl___y old woman.

“Veils.”

There’s no answer, but a velveteen ear does perk up in your general direction.

You sigh. “How long do you plan to keep staring at it, Veils?”

Again, Veils only gives you silence. You worry for him, you truly do, certainly more than he deserves, but you can’t stop the impatience from bubbling up inside your guts. It’s not your first time here, trying to shake Veils from the torpor he has seemingly fallen into. You come back, again and again and again, you ask, you plead, you _beg_ , just to end up leaving the monster you trouble yourself with calling “friend” sitting by the window, staring away into that seven-da___d funeral pyre that insists on burning in the distance.

_We are trying to_ **_help_ ** , you want to scream at him, _we are trying to help you like the others have_ **_never_ ** _tried to help_ **_us_ ** _, why can’t you just cooperate?!_ You almost do it, opening your mouth to shout even though you know deep inside that it will amount to nothing but a possible bite to the face, but you’re so _tired_ of keeping everything together, just so f______ _tired_ \--

“It’s _beautiful_ , isn’t it?”

You blink, jaws still hanging open while your voice dies at your throat.

“I never noticed how pretty it was, the fire,” Veils continues. “The way it sways… almost like fabric. Such a beautiful way to go, with flames for a shroud… but painful, yes? So painful… I heard the screams from here. Did you?”

You stare at Veils, the lingering taste of bile suddenly coming up your throat. “We were _there_ , Veils.”

Veils chuckles at that, the old demon. “Were you, now? Then they’ll keep ringing on your ears. I would know that, of course: _his_ screams have been with me ever since.”

You open your mouth to retort, but close it again after a second.

… This isn’t about Fires anymore, is it?

Silence falls between you two once more. Veils reclines more in his rocking chair and starts humming for himself, eyes never straying away from the fiery betrayal that sears in the distance.

“So beautiful,” he whispers after some time. “Just like candle flame.” 

You close your eyes and let out a shaky sigh. This has never been about Fires, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was particularly fun to work with. I like the idea of the Betrayal being respoinsible for breaking and building Mr Veils.


End file.
